Read in latest issue of Autocar.
From Nov 2012, all new cars will be fitted with ESC.
Even if ESC fitted as option in earlier cars, it will be checked in MOT.
Electric seat adjustment motors will also be part of MOT check.
It will also include Tyre Pressure Monitoring System - if fitted.
The article also mentioned that it might cost upto £1500 to fix ESC, £500 for seat motors and £500 for TPMS if they go wrong.
It may affect price of used cars (out of warranty).
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Electronic Stability Control
Totally unnecessary
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>>>Electronic Stability Control... Totally unnecessary
Not if there's the slightest chance you might be involved in a potential accident situation it's not. Brilliant system.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Tue 8 Nov 11 at 09:55
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ESC is great. Only had it activate once.. but great in emergency stops at high speed in wet.
Last edited by: madf on Tue 8 Nov 11 at 09:57
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Got a link to the news.
www.choicequote.co.uk/news/car/privatecar_mot-test-to-become-stricter--.asp
ESC is a good thing during emergency maneuver - if car does not follow your intended path (calculated from steering angles), then ECU will apply brakes to individual wheels to make them follow your intended path.
Not a bad thing, but I won't be happy if I need to shell out £££ to fix it if it goes wrong.
Last edited by: movilogo on Tue 8 Nov 11 at 10:01
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>> ESC is great. Only had it activate once.. but great in emergency stops at high
>> speed in wet.
You have ABS and a steering wheel for that.
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>> ESC is great. Only had it activate once..
My previous Vectra had it, and saved me having a nasty accident. I entered a bend too fast and it had an adverse camber. The ABS kicked in when I applied the brakes, but with 3 rear seat passengers and a mobility scooter in the boot, the extra weight at the rear of the car started to swing the back end out, and had it not been for the ESC the car would have ended up going down the road sideways into the path of a Landrover towing a horsebox.
It was like someone reached down from above with a big hand, grabbed the car and put it back on the correct side of the road.
Yes, hands up, I was going too fast on an unknown road as light levels were fading, but had it not been for the ESC, god knows what would have happened.
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 8 Nov 11 at 10:25
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Yeah, great for teaching generations of drivers no feel or any idea of limits of adhesion, until of course it gets overwhelmed.
Just how many accident have you had where ESC would have saved you from serious injury? - for sure - not a guess?
Waste of time and expense. legislation for the sake of it.
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>> Just how many accident have you had where ESC would have saved you from serious injury? - for sure - not a guess?
Numerous studies around the world confirm that ESC is highly effective in helping the driver maintain control of the car, thereby saving lives and reducing the severity of crashes.
source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control
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Never let facts get in the way of luddite instincts.
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well its not a problem for you is it, you get others to buy your cars.
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If you say so. Pay it forward.
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>>>Waste of time and expense. legislation for the sake of it.
Like seat belts and lifejackets really... I've never needed either in over 50yrs.
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Well you can all rush off headlong into the world of MOT failures and extra expense then, smiling and happy at the prospect it seems. Long may your children have no idea of the limits of adhesion.
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My friends Clio has ECS, it works brilliant. She went round a corner too fast and her car flipped over......
As a result I would never buy a car without it, I mean it clearly does work perfectly. If it all means is you flip over instead of err well flip over.
My car doesn't have it, but it does have something called electronic break force distribution in addition to the ABS.
I also think stuff like ECS can make bad drivers, because you may be tempted to go faster round corners thinking the computers will sort you out if you get into trouble. As my friend found out it doesn't always work that way.
That said my friend did at least walk out of the Clio without injury, whats more the car was even repaired.
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>> it does have something called electronic break force distribution in addition to the ABS.
My current Vectra-C has that - and it works very well. Just stamp on the brakes and the computer realises you want to stop very quickly and slams the brakes on even harder and the ABS goes into overdrive. Can stop on a sixpence.
It doesn't however sooth your aching ribs from where the seat belt digs right in.
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>> it does have something called electronic break force distribution in addition to the ABS
IIRC most cars now have it included by default.
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>> >> it does have something called electronic break force distribution in addition to the ABS
>>
>> IIRC most cars now have it included by default.
>>
>>
If it comes with a Panda then I would guess it comes on most things
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>> If it comes with a Panda then I would guess it comes on most things
:-)
Doesn't electronic brake force distribution just replace the mechanical load sensing valve thing that prevented the rear brakes locking under light loads/heavy braking? I assume being electronic it's (a) cheaper and (b) more reliable
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>> >> it does have something called electronic break force distribution in addition to the ABS.
>>
>> My current Vectra-C has that -
Brake Assist is not the same as EBD. I infer this because our Civic claims to have both.
EBD is probably necessary for brake assist.
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You are one the luckiest people I know :).
I know when my dad at that crash in 2002, the seat belts saved our lives, or at least prevented serious injury.
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>> What is ESC?
>>
Escape button on a keyboard
Press to get out of situations.
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>>Electric seat adjustment motors will also be part of MOT check.
>>
Oh well that will be my Mondeo written off.
Especially irritating as I am the only driver except the lads at the service centre and then it does not laeve the site ( I hope)
I had the unreliable central locking fail and the just drivers door was double locked.
Dealer sorted it but I suspect they damaged the switch box for the drivers electric seat.
one switch has failed and just the box was £150 so "forget it" as that is half the book price of the whole car and I can do without it.
.
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Good Grief - How did we drive all those big powerful 70`s cars without all these three-letter acronyms and still be alive today???
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Well, in those days you didn't have so many hazards (= other cars) as of today and thus taking evasive action was rare :-)
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What a load of cobblers.
How have many of us driven millions of collision free miles in vehicles without this fantastic system that replaces common sense and learned limits with electronics?
We learned the limitations of our vehicles that's how, most importantly we learned that it doesn't matter how many 3 letter systems are fitted to a car, no one has yet come up with a way of turning 4 small patches of slippery wet rubber into multi material full vehicle length tank tracks when required.
I understand the need for such electronics these days, for we have incompetent ninies who have never learned by feel to drive or handle a car properly rushing round in vehicles far too fast for them in inappropriate places, with brakes and handling to suit the overperformance of the car.
Still on 4 tyres though, still restricted by the fact those 4 tyres whilst fantastic in the dry, are verging on the useless in the wet unless warm.
Bring it on, lets get more fantastic systems, so numpties can drive even faster even closer to the vehicle in front, safe in the knowledge that they can pilot their machines with impunity...until the inevitable happens, when these amazing electronis can't out perform the lack of grip from those still as before as always 4 patches of rubber.
Notice all bets are off when ice and snow descend, the worshipped systems suddenly are not the miracle any more in fact have to be turned off to make any progress at all in some cases, and the numpties who never learned to drive crash.....oh dear the car must be faulty it crashed.
Tyres and the learned appreciation of feel for a cars limits, every time they show what happens when conditions outperform the systems.
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Is there another scenario apart from (a) its fab and (b) we managed without for years?
This would be (c) It's there but malfunctioning and doing the complete opposite of what it's meant to.
If that's possible, and I know the stuff's supposed to fail safe, then perhaps there's a good reason for it being in the MoT.
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I don't understand some poster's reluctance at accepting safety devices in cars.
Years ago seatbelts were a novelty but as we all know, they save lives. I'd much rather drive a car with as many safety devices as possible knowing full well that in the event something occurred I and my family would have the best available features to either prevent a crash or at least mitigate the end results. So what if the Government want to make them part of the test. At least when it comes to buying a 2nd hand car you know they've been tested and may still work when you come to buy an unknown vehicle.
Would those 'non-believing luddites' fly on a commercial jet knowing it had untested safety features? I wouldn't.
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>> Would those 'non-believing luddites' fly on a commercial jet knowing it had untested safety features?
>> I wouldn't.
you do, all the time. many aircraft safety features are untested.
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>> you do, all the time. many aircraft safety features are untested.
>>
I don't fly!
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>> many aircraft safety features are untested.
Could you give some examples Z?
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>> >> many aircraft safety features are untested.
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>> Could you give some examples Z?
well, the first time the design for landing at sea, and the evacuation procedures for the same were tested was in the Hudson.
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> >>
>> >> Could you give some examples Z?
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>> well, the first time the design for landing at sea, and the evacuation procedures for
>> the same were tested was in the Hudson.
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Really?
www.airlinereporter.com/2010/04/video-flight-attendants-practicing-water-ditch-landing-part-2/
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>> > >>
>> >> >> Could you give some examples Z?
>> >>
>> >> well, the first time the design for landing at sea, and the evacuation procedures
>> for
>> >> the same were tested was in the Hudson.
>> >>
>>
>> Really?
>>
>> www.airlinereporter.com/2010/04/video-flight-attendants-practicing-water-ditch-landing-part-2/
Yes really, where is the water? That's practising evacuation with a life jacket on.
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>> well, the first time the design for landing at sea, and the evacuation procedures for
>> the same were tested was in the Hudson.
Most attempted ditchings have ended in disaster. If impact with water doesn't cause a catastrophic failure then rapid sinking usually follows. I'm sure I've seen video somewhere of a 767 ditching in the Indian ocean, possibly after a hi-jack, some survived I think. There have also been other examples of aircraft fetching up in shallow water after overruns at places like Kai Tak or JFK.
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aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19961123-0
Didn't realise it was that long ago (1996) - plenty of vids on YouTube.
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>> I don't understand some poster's reluctance at accepting safety devices in cars.
>>
In my case that's easily explained. I like big old cars that have little to go wrong, are easy to fix, and are cheap. I'm not that bothered about safety features - I try to drive within the limitations of my abilities, the state of traffic, the road, my tyres, brakes, steering, etc.
I'm not interested in pushing my speed to the point that if something goes wrong, autopilot will keep me safe. I chose not to push it in the first place.
Yes, I suppose theoretically I could be even safer by accepting the technology. But that's my choice of the freedom to enjoy the kind of cars I like.
So when I read of some marvelous advance in driver safety, I just think what's that going to do to the price of fixing a 10 or 20 year old car when it goes wrong?
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>> Electric seat adjustment motors will also be part of MOT check.
>>
>> Oh well that will be my Mondeo written off.
I had a MkI Mondeo which did 325,000 miles in 6 years, and a £200 Escort. Just about the only thing that never broke on either car was the electric seat height adjustment :)
Works fine on my Mk3 Mondeo at 123,000 miles too, everything does.
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In the real world, where many folk use their car as a mobile appliance akin to a washing machine or cooker, ESC has to be a very good idea. Never had it kick in on on my cars, but I appreciate it being there. I especially appreciate the numpty coming the other way (sorry Dave!) having it and stopping them losing control and having a head on with me.
However, failing perfectly good cars on their MOT with an ESC light showing, especially when it was an optional extra doesn't make any sense at all.
It's not like the cars can't be driven and stopped safely with ESC being non-functional.
OTOH, as cars get more sophisticated and systems within the car become more integrated in their operation, having a non-working ESC system might be a big problem. But that isn't the case, yet...
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How have many of us driven millions of collision free miles in vehicles without this fantastic system that replaces common sense and learned limits with electronics?
To borrow an analogy from Ben Goldacre, GB, you're drawing the target around where the arrows already are. How many potential contributors here never got this far but might have done if they'd had ESC? I have no idea, and nor have you.
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I don't think I've ever driven a car with ESC. Nor do I particularly want to. And I really, really don't want to own a car with such a device when MoT time comes round say five or ten years into its life. There will be a lot of perfectly good jalopies scrapped because repairing the thing will cost several times the car's s/h value.
Which is almost certainly the intention, the whole point. Capitalism: don'tcha just love it?
I have driven a car - an Octavia - with AWG's trick part-time 4wd, and that impressed me the only time I triggered it. But I wouldn't want, at my age, to get into the habit of depending on something like that. One might unconsciously get a bit cavalier with the laws of physics, and that could eventually end in tears. I very seldom try to go really fast these days. Haven't done it for years.
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If capitalism worked there'd be a ready trade in repaired or reconditioned components.
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Looking at from a slightly different angle, we had, until fairly recently, a 1988 BMW 325i Touring. It had ABS, and was generally of high spec - a/c, heated seats, electric windows/mirrors/sunroof etc. Everything still worked, and it sailed though the MOT every year (bar one when when the handbrake needed adjusting). So if a 20 year old BMW can do it (and let's face it, the E30 must have been a late '70s design), then surely a car designed 30 or more years later is in with a fighting chance of still working after 10 years?
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Peter has a point. Most electrical stuff on my 10yo Xantia still works including 'no go' items around the engine and safety stuff like ABS and airbags. The ABS rotors and one sensor have been replaced but anything hanging in the dirt and debris underneath is going to be vulnerable to damage.
Recent weather has shown the HRW to be u/s - that'll be a wiring break where the loom crosses the tailgate hinge.
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Practically, despite all of the huffing and puffing in this thread, Peter S is on the right track.
ESC doesn't represent a large amount of extra hardware over that which is fitted as part of the ABS systems which have been mandatory since 2004.
At every stage, there have been doom mongers saying that the latest advance in vehicle engineering is unthinkable - generally, they've been wrong.
As we know, it really isn't the electronics which cause problems, it is mechanical failures, like injectors leaking, DMFs rattling, and DPFs blocking - sudden failures of most ECUs are rare events.
My KE jetronic ECU in the Audi is now knocking on for 20 years old, all the ECUs in my W124 are nearing 17 years - they are the parts of the cars which I worry least about.
I really don't know how you Luddites have managed to accept the wheel at all...
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You are right at of course, but electrons seem to scare a lot of people on here! If half of this site got their way, we would still be using carbs and dizzys.
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I don't think that's the case.
I have to admit I'm more concerned about young, inexperienced drivers having winter tyres fitted and thinking that they don't have to adapt the style of driving for the weather.
Likewise with ABS and all the other technical help features.
Driving style and a certain empathy with the vehicle, surroundings and road condition is the best safety feature we should all know off by heart.
I can understand people wanting to ensure the safety of their offspring, but surely it's better to let them learn their limitations than covering them in a safety net?
Pat
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>>
>> I can understand people wanting to ensure the safety of their offspring, but surely it's
>> better to let them learn their limitations than covering them in a safety net?
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>> Pat
>>
No it isn't Pat.
That's the whole point of these marvellous modern safety aids isn't it. Drivers don't have to get to their limitations before they are reigned in and live to tell the tale down the pub after a near-miss.
I can see your point almost - in an ideal world we'd all have superior training when learning to drive, then go on advanced courses and learn to drive a car like McRae so we could all get out of those difficult spots. But back in the real world this rarely happens so the next best thing to try to assist the big pink squishy thing controlling a vehicle is to fit said vehicle with ABS, EBD and any other 3 letter acronyms you car to invent. I don't drive fast, don't drive recklessly and hope I never experience my limitations simply because I don't know what those limitations are.
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...than covering them in a safety net?
You've spent too much time with cargo nets, Pat. That's not what you do with a safety net.
}:---)
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;) to WdeB!
I think we have bred a nation of people who believe that they are never in any danger because there is always a bit of technology to keep them safe.
They don't have to think for themselves and therefore become a danger to everyone else.
Take Rattle's friend for example, finding the limit of the technology on her car resulted in a rollover, had she had to have found that on a gradual basis without that technology she would have been scared that it would rollover, not confident that it wouldn't.
I know I sound like a Luddite (or GB!) but I'm not, I just think every driver of any vehicle should be able to drive it by the seat of their pants, and the roads would be a lot safer.
Pat
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>> You are right at of course, but electrons seem to scare a lot of people
>> on here! If half of this site got their way, we would still be using
>> carbs and dizzys.
No we wouldnt, The distributor is a mechanical bodge, as are carburetters. ABS is a godsend,
What i dont need or want however is ESC,, forced on me because some other dozy git cant drive.
Ah! you say, it allows you to swerve round elk.
Sorry most people wont know how to swerve at speed at anyway,
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 8 Nov 11 at 17:43
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>> What i dont need or want however is ESC,, forced on me because some other
>> dozy git cant drive.
Similar tedious arguments apply for seat belts, airbags, etc, etc, etc,...
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>> Sorry most people wont know how to swerve at speed at anyway,
>>
Actually, they don't. High speed swerves are a manouvre that most drivers never do, they aren't trained in it, or practised in it at all. It happens that most people when placed in the position of needing to do a high speed swerve will apply much too much steering angle, and will provoke a skid.
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The demo on Fifth Gear a few years back seemed pretty convincing to me. It's astonishing the number of "perfect" drivers here who reckon they can do a better job - face it, in an unexpected situation, in the wet, possibly in the dark, you'll want any help you can get. ESP is a driver aid, nothing more.
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I find it's a good aid to learning the limits of the car, with a bit of a confidence building safety net.
The BMW was my first RWD car in nearly 20 years, and while once confident slinging RWD cars around, years of FWD had made me not only apprehensive, but incredibly rusty. For example, my gut reaction in response to a rear end slide had become to floor the throttle - perfect in a front driver, but an almost certain accident in a rear driver.
By feeling the ESP do its stuff, I was able to quickly learn where the limits were in relative safety. By which I don't mean chucking it into a corner at stupid speeds and relying on the electronics to dig me out of trouble, but build cornering speeds until I felt (and saw by means of the idiot light on the dash), the system intervene. After which, I knew where the mechanical grip limits were, and how the car behaved in response to certain inputs in certain situations. When I finally plucked up the courage to turn it all off, nothing came as an unpleasant surprise.
Of course, 99% of the time, the system stays on, but I tend to still drive the car as it if it were switched off. i.e. careful on the power coming out of tight corners in the wet, and keeping cornering speeds within the mechanical limits of the car. Even on a hard drive in the wet, the system very rarely intervenes. And of course, in a real emergency, when something unexpected happens, I would rather have the system on my side.
On quiet roads though, turning it all off, and properly "having" the car, and being able to overstep the mark occasionally, and deal with the result myself is a feeling I still get quite a kick out of.
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On quiet roads though, turning it all off, and properly "having" the car, and being able to overstep the mark occasionally, and deal with the result myself is a feeling I still get quite a kick out of.{quote)
The result could be me on a peacefull bicycle ride,when you overstep the mark.Sorry I don't want to be a statistic.
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>> The result could be me on a peacefull bicycle ride,when you overstep the mark.Sorry I
>> don't want to be a statistic.
Clear sighted corners only. Not only unlikely, I'd go so far as to say impossible.
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>> The demo on Fifth Gear a few years back
I had a very impressive demo at Millbrook proving ground a couple of years ago in the new Astra when taken round the handling circuit by one of the professional drivers there.
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It's possible to turn the ESC system off on my VW Jetta Sports - did it at times during last winter's long term snow coverage of the roads.
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So if its switchable, on and off, why
a: make it a mandatory feature
b: an MOT fail.
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It's possible to turn headlights on and off, but the car is still required to have them and most of them even have to work for the MOT ;-)
The next thing of course will be mandatory auto-lights...
Peter
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You can take off your seatbelt - equivalent to switiching it off, but it's still a mandatory feature and still part of the MOT test.
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I think you'll find (on Fords at least) that even if you've deactivated the system it'll step back in to protect the car if it judges you've spectacularly lost control above 50mph. Seems a perfectly reasonable thing.
My BMW has a separate sub-mode called DTC, which permits, for example, controlled drifts but again will step in if you screw it up and the back starts overtaking the front. Ultimately, you can deactivate it completely, but why?
Cars fitted with ESP don't snake when towing caravans.
It's no more intrinsically unreliable than ABS (after all, it's little more than a software update and a couple of additional sensors) and that's already an MOT item.
Last edited by: Fursty Ferret on Tue 8 Nov 11 at 23:57
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>>Cars fitted with ESP don't snake when towing caravans.
I cannot agree with that statement. however, cars fitted with ESP will attempt to prevent snaking when towing caravans, I will agree with.
You can't alter the rules of physics.
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>>> even if you've deactivated the system it'll step back in to protect the car if it judges you've spectacularly lost control above 50mph. Seems a perfectly reasonable thing.
On the C5 the deactivation button will only work under 30mph and then it will reset at soon as you go over 30 again. I can't see why you would ever not want it looking after you.
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I think Stability control is great. Even my Little C1 has it and if you really go to fast round a round about you feel and hear it kick in ! then it means you can go even faster ! but then the problem is you need a full harness to hold you in the seat LOL
I think the MOT rule is correct. having worked in a garage its quite frightening at times just how many cars are driving around with countless faults and warning lights ablaze.
the funniest was an old Scorpio with elec seats that had failed and they had mastic'd loads of pedal rubbers on the pedals so they could reach the pedals !!!!!!!! so i can understand the new rules.
The old MOT rules you could only fail if the pedal rubber was missing ! not one stacked on top of the other !
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>> I think Stability control is great. Even my Little C1 has it and if you
>> really go to fast round a round about you feel and hear it kick in
>> ! then it means you can go even faster ! but then the problem is
>> you need a full harness to hold you in the seat LOL
Thats one camera clip you wont be showing when it all goes wrong.
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! If half of this site got their way, we would still be using
>> carbs and dizzys.
>>
I shudder at the thought, although electronic ignition. mine was never right and burnt out once. And I was to sick to death of adjusting my "Varajet II" having to to get the choke just right or it would not start.
Electronic fuel injection is a god send
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The most common Varajet II fault was a failed choke pull down diaphragm, which made the mixture too rich on cold starting - at the time, we fitted hundreds of them!
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>> The most common Varajet II fault was a failed choke pull down diaphragm, which made
>> the mixture too rich on cold starting - at the time, we fitted hundreds of
>> them!
>>
>>
Mine started on the key 1st time (if you got the choke right) it was the running on tick over when warmed up that I had a problem with. constantly have to adjust the thing!
I think it could have done with a new carb but I didn't have the money (at the time) to spend on a new one for it not be any different.
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The giveaway was the engine "chugging" a bit while on choke - we could hear the fault as the cars were being driven into the workshop.
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Blimey that brings back memories of the old GM varajet ! phew done a few of those in the past when I worked for Opel dealership. They were the good old days when you could go on a course just to make you a carb specialist LOL.
They were a temperamental carburetor that was also very sensitive to fuel pressure. If the old mechanical pump was 1/2 pound up on pressure it used to flood them and make the car juicy. At least we sold hundreds of pressure regs and used to turn them down to 1/2 pound pressure. went a good n then.
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MOT rule changing - Robbie34
